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arXiv:2603.19207

Rotation-triggered Kelvin-Helmholtz and counter-superflow instabilities in a three-component Bose-Einstein condensate

Susovan Giri, Arpana Saboo, H. Ghosh, Vipin, Sonjoy Majumder

Published Mar 19, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Interfacial hydrodynamic instabilities in multicomponent superfluids provide a versatile platform to explore nonequilibrium quantum dynamics beyond classical fluid analogues. We study dynamical interfacial instabilities in a quasi-two-dimensional three-component Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic trap, where rotation is applied selectively to the intermediate component to generate controlled relative motion at two interfaces. This selective rotation protocol enables the independent tuning of shear and counterflow across the inner and outer boundaries, allowing direct control over the nature and strength of the resulting instability mechanisms. Three regimes are examined: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the strongly immiscible limit, counter-superflow instability in the partially miscible regime, and a parameter window where both unstable mechanisms are present. The onset condition for the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is derived using a hydrodynamic pressure-balance approach, and the subsequent nonlinear evolution is obtained from time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii simulations. A Bogoliubov-de Gennes analysis is performed to identify the dominant unstable modes excited during the dynamical evolution of the system. The conniving features of the collective excitations and their spatial structures have been consistent with the density modulations observed during the dynamics. The results demonstrate that the presence of two interfaces and tunable intercomponent interactions in a three-component condensate modifies the instability mechanisms relative to binary mixtures and provides a controlled parameter regime to study multicomponent quantum hydrodynamics.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2603.19207

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Interfacial hydrodynamic instabilities in multicomponent superfluids provide a versatile platform to explore nonequilibrium quantum dynamics beyond classical fluid analogues. We study dynamical interfacial instabilities in a quasi-two-dimensional three-component Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic trap, where rotation is applied selectively to the intermediate component to generate controlled relative motion at two interfaces. This selective rotation protocol enables the independent tuning of shear and counterflow across the inner and outer boundaries, allowing direct control over the nature and strength of the resulting instability mechanisms. Three regimes are examined: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the strongly immiscible limit, counter-superflow instability in the partially miscible regime, and a parameter window where both unstable mechanisms are present. The onset condition for the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is derived using a hydrodynamic pressure-balance approach, and the subsequent nonlinear evolution is obtained from time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii simulations. A Bogoliubov-de Gennes analysis is performed to identify the dominant unstable modes excited during the dynamical evolution of the system. The conniving features of the collective excitations and their spatial structures have been consistent with the density modulations observed during the dynamics. The results demonstrate that the presence of two interfaces and tunable intercomponent interactions in a three-component condensate modifies the instability mechanisms relative to binary mixtures and provides a controlled parameter regime to study multicomponent quantum hydrodynamics.
Dynamical instabilities at the interface between two Bose-Einstein condensates that are moving relative to each other are investigated using mean-field and Bogoliubov analyses. Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is dominant when the interface thickness is much smaller than the wavelength of the unstable interface mode, whereas the counter-superflow instability becomes dominant in the opposite case. These instabilities emerge not only in an immiscible system but also in a miscible system where an interface is produced by external potential. Dynamics caused by these instabilities are numerically demonstrated in rotating trapped condensates.
Counter-rotating vortices in miscible two-component Bose-Einstein condensates, in which superflows counter-rotate between the two components around the overlapped vortex cores, are studied theoretically in a pancake-shaped potential. In a linear stability analysis with the Bogoliubov--de Gennes model, we show that counter-rotating vortices are dynamically unstable against splitting into multiple vortices. The instability shows characteristic behaviors as a result of counter-superflow instability, which causes relaxation of relative flows between the two components in binary condensates. The characteristic behaviors are completely different from those of multiquantum vortices in single-component Bose-Einstein condensates; the number of vortices generated by the instability can become larger than the initial winding number of the counter-rotating vortex. We also investigate the nonlinear dynamics of the instability by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equations. The nonlinear dynamics drastically changes when the winding number of counter-rotating vortices becomes larger, which lead to nucleation of vortex pairs outside of the vortex core. The instability eventually develops into turbulence after the relaxation of the relative rotation between the two components.
We investigate the various physical mechanisms that underlie the dynamical instability of a quantized vortex array at the interface between two counter-propagating superflows in a two-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate. Instabilities of markedly different nature are found to dominate in different flow velocity regimes. For moderate velocities where the two flows are subsonic, the vortex lattice displays a quantized version of the hydrodynamic Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (KHI), with the vortices rolling up and co-rotating. For supersonic flow velocities, the oscillation involved in the KHI can resonantly couple to acoustic excitations propagating away in the bulk fluid on both sides. This makes the KHI rate to be effectively suppressed and other mechanisms to dominate: For finite and relatively small systems along the transverse direction, the instability involves a repeated superradiant scattering of sound waves off the vortex lattice; for transversally unbound systems, a radiative instability dominates, leading to the simultaneous growth of a localized wave along the vortex lattice and of acoustic excitations propagating away in the bulk. Finally, for slow velocities, where the KHI rate is intrinsically slow, another instability associated to the rigid lateral displacement of the vortex lattice due to the vicinity of the system’s boundary is found to dominate.
We explore instabilities in binary superfluids with a nonvanishing relative superflow, particularly focusing on counterflow and coflow instabilities. We extend recent results on the thermodynamic origin of finite superflow instabilities in single-component superfluids to binary systems and derive a criterion for the onset of instability through a hydrodynamic analysis, which applies to interacting many-body systems at finite temperature. We find that the onset of these instabilities is signaled by the determinant of the Hessian of the thermal free energy diverging and changing sign. We verify this hydrodynamic prediction in a holographic binary superfluid modeled with gauge/gravity duality, which naturally incorporates strong coupling, finite temperature, and dissipation. We also compare to results obtained using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates and find that the same criterion continues to apply at zero temperature, where it reduces to evaluating derivatives of the supercurrents with respect to the superfluid velocities. We observe that the critical velocities of these instabilities follow a general scaling law related to the interaction strength between superfluid components. Finally, the nonlinear stages of the instabilities are studied by full time evolution using gauge/gravity duality, where vortex annihilation leads to a decrease of superfluid velocity back to a value where the binary superfluid phase is stable.
The first realization of instabilities in the shear flow between two superfluids is examined. The interface separating the A and B phases of superfluid 3He is magnetically stabilized. With uniform rotation we create a state with discontinuous tangential velocities at the interface, supported by the difference in quantized vorticity in the two phases. This state remains stable and nondissipative to high relative velocities, but finally undergoes an instability when an interfacial mode is excited and some vortices cross the phase boundary. The measured properties of the instability are consistent with the classic Kelvin-Helmholtz theory when modified for two-fluid hydrodynamics.